The drug cartel violence coupled with increased crime along the Arizona/Mexico border has prompted Arizona officials to place signs along a heavily-traveled and known smuggling route leading from Mexico to the state’s capitol of Phoenix.
Signs went up a couple weeks ago along the southern side of I-8 between Casa Grande and Gila Bend Arizona. The region is about 80 miles north of the Mexican border and it warns American citizens of the dangers of hiking in the area.
Mexican drug cartels appear to control large areas of Southern Arizona, according to the Pinal County Sheriff.
According to Borderland Beat, the Pinal County Sherriff says, "We do not have control of this area."
Pinal County investigators are now saying the area known as the ‘smuggling corridor’ stretches from the Mexico's border to Phoenix.
Borderland suggests the area was once known as a family hiking and off road vehicles area. However the government has posted signs warning visitors and residents of the drug and human smuggling activity.
Recently law enforcement in the southern Arizona region photographed, using night vision cameras, cartel members with military arms delivering drugs to vehicles along Highway 8.
“We are three counties deep. How is it that you see pictures like these, not American with semi and fully automatic rifles? How is that okay?" the Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu asked.
"We are outgunned, we are out manned and we don't have the resources here locally to fight this," the Sheriff said at a news conference.
Just 5 weeks ago Deputy Louie Puroll was ambushed and shot by armed men as he tracked suspected drug smugglers. Sheriff Babeu explained that incident mirrored military tactics and should act as a warning to all Arizonians.
While the federal government fails to secure the border, the Arizona state government is left to post signs warning residents that it is no longer safe to use thousands of acres of BLM land.
The new sign reads; “Danger Public Warning, travel not recommended active human and drug smuggling area, visitors may encounter armed criminals and smuggling vehicles traveling at high rates of speed. Stay away from trash, clothing, backpacks and abandoned vehicles. If you see suspicious activity, do not confront (underlined) move away and call 911. The BLM encourages visitors to use public lands north of Interstate 8.”
A mere hop, skip and jump south to Mexico the murders continue unabated.
Mexico experienced its deadliest day since Felipe Calderon took office and 85 citizens lost their lives in a single day due to an uptick in drug cartel brutality.
The bloody Friday in Mexico was summed up by local news reports as organized crime-related mayhem. “In what constitutes the most violent day since the present federal administration began the frontal struggle against organized crime, 85 people lost their lives in acts related directly to ‘adjustments of affairs’ between rival gangs, confrontations and assassinations with high-caliber firearms,” local newspapers reported.
The previous single day loss of life tally was 58 on November 3, 2008.
This should be a wake-up call for all Americans; secure the borders or live in potential lawlessness.
Americans on the American side of the U.S. Mexican border are in much danger today from newly trained Mexican drug traffickers, who according to the highest level of the Mexican military reveals that Mexican Drug Cartels (MDC's) are currently training Mexican smugglers in the art of military tactic's. These trainees often referred to by many as coyotes are very important to the drug trade.
These coyotes are believed to be responsible for the tons of illegal drugs being clandestinely smuggled into the United States from Mexico on a daily bases. As a result of this new level of training it is putting many average Americans in crave danger and right here at home.
A high ranking Mexican Army commander who insists on remaining anonymous has told the U.S. Border Fire Report that Mexican coyotes are now being trained by the Mexican Drug Cartel known as the Los Zetas and are operating in the deserts of Arizona. These highly trained former Mexican Army solders who themselves went through some of the best and latest U.S. Army training at the American tax payers expense now are passing this training onto the front line drug smugglers that guide these drug loads and human beings into the states mainly through our southern border with Mexico. They're known as "Los Zetas
This new breed of coyote now operate as a fine tuned military unit. I was able to make contact and talk with one of these new Zetas coyote smugglers. The deal was, if I would agree to not take any photo's or know his real name he would talk with me.
So I'll call him Juan. Juan told me that he had been guiding people into the USA for years and said he made a good living for him and his family of 7 kids and a wife. He said he was approached a couple of years ago by a Los Zetas officer who offered him military training and lots more money. Juan said that he picked 5 of his best workers who over the years had help him with his guiding business and they all went to a Zetas's camp for 9 weeks of training. He says " that he now makes much more money" he went on to say with this new training and man power he's able to bring many more people and loads of drugs into the US via the U.S. Mexican border. He said that where he once was paid 100 U.S. dollars per person (Illegal Alien) and 500 per pack mule (drug carrier) He now makes much more than that.
He confided that he and many others now as Los Zetas's operatives run five (5) man armed squads who lead both people who want to come to America and drug smuggling mules across the Arizona desert. " One of the members of his team runs point, two or more on each side of the group when possible or otherwise imbedded within the middle range of the group. Another brings up the rear as a tail gunner each carrying an AK 47 and the tail gunner packing a M-60 machine gun and or a 12 gouge riot shot gun. The groups range in size from 4 or five to a hundred or more per trip.
He, told me "that the weapons are used to guarantee the success of the operation." He said "there are many dangers I and my men can face in route, me and my men have used our weapons to protect the group against Rattle Snakes and even Bear attacks" 06/08/09–10 second video — bear on trail. But later he admitted that the main reason for having the weapons is to protect the drugs, mainly from competing drug gangs who from time to time they encounter.
According to him many of the roaming gangs are looking for a fast and easy load of drugs, But also there are competing drug cartel gangs who are also trained and will try to take our loads and who want to operate on our turf. "But now we are much better prepared to deal with this and other threats that we may have to face on every trip." I asked, if and when he encounters American law enforcement would he and his men fire their weapons at them? He told me that that was not likely to happen because the routes he uses are not paroled by American authorities. He claims that this is possible because some high U.S. Government people is paid by the Zetas to not be in the area at certain times during his operations. He said " we take additional precautions to prevent that from happening." "We post our own people all along the route to I 8 and near the transfer points on the highway mile markers. We place our spotters on high ground and fly ultralight aircraft, both have communication equipment, radio's and through away cell phones. They are paid to watch for authorities and intruders, such as gangs, dangerous animals, American tourist, hikers, campers and all others who may be in the area."
Arizona estimates that there are up to million tourist known as snow birds who migrate to Arizona to winter each year, spending upwards of $1 billion dollars. Many of those snow birds camp, play and recreate on and near the dangerous U.S. Mexican Border in southern Arizona. Just like birds flying south for the winter, human residents of cold climates desire to escape the cold climates for a life of leisure. Most are unaware of the many dangers that the Mexican smugglers pose to there safety. There are signs posted on much of the Government lands warning visitors to the dangers that they my face if encountered by these dangerous smugglers. Juan, told me he is retiring, that he has made a lot of money in the last couple of years and he is going to leave his business to one of his younger associate operative from which he expects to receive payments from him for years to come.
Juan is moving his family to Colorado to live the American dream.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) considers Los Zetas to be the most dangerous drug-trafficking organization in Mexico. Its members earned a reputation as super-gangsters adept at paramilitary-style ambushes and bold jailbreaks.
On the Texas-Mexico border, the Zetas are mythic, their crimes chronicled in the media and memorialized in narco-ballads.
They are the most feared, most emulated criminals in Mexico.
"They are a formidable criminal organization," says Anthony Placido, the DEA's chief of intelligence. "They're heavily armed with .50-caliber sniper rifles and heavy and light military-grade ordnance."
"They are every bit as ferocious and as capable as a military force as some of the rumors believe them to be," Placido says.
Originally, there were 31 Zetas — elite army counter-narcotics commandos who defected to work as enforcers for the Gulf Cartel. The name came from their radio code, the letter Z.
But after the 2003 arrest of Gulf crime boss Osiel Cardenas, "the lion wised up and now controls the handler," as one observer put it.
The Zetas have morphed into their own cartel. Their zone of influence ranges from the lower Texas border, south along the Atlantic and Caribbean coastal states of Mexico, through Chiapas and all the way into Guatemala, where they trans-ship South American cocaine to Mexico.
But their base remains the charmless industrial border cities in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas.
Nuevo Laredo, in Tamaulipas, is the most important trade border crossing in Latin America — and it is Zeta territory.
From 2004 to 2007, the Zetas fought a savage turf war — which included bazooka and grenade attacks — against interlopers from the Sinaloa Cartel and others. Zetas are now operating along the U.S. Mexican border from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean.
These newly trained Zata solders are currently enjoying a free rain to enter this country unmolested by American authorities throughout the American Southwest where American Indian reservations, U.S. Military lands, National Parks, Monuments and U.S. forest lands are being penetrated and used by these smugglers, particularly in south central and south eastern Arizona and along the southern New Mexico border with old Mexico.
There are many gaps in the border that are not being effectively protected by American law enforcement and that at least in part is the reason concerned Americans have in the past formed minute man groups, armed themselves and patrolled the U.S. Mexican border and attempted to divert human and drug trafficking. In the past U.S. Army troops and National Guard units where also placed on the border.
The U.S. has increased the numbers of the U.S. Border Patrol and Homeland security have beefed up border checks of travelers entering and exiting our country at known check points along the more than 2000 mile border with Mexico. Even with the billions of dollars having been spend on drug interdiction over the years as part of the war on drugs, the war on drugs is a failure.
Judge James Gray of Orange County California who has studied and worked with drug issues for years says "tens of billions of tax payer dollars have been spent on the War On Drugs and that so called war on drugs has failed."
According to long time border observer Glen Spencer "A massive number of people illegally enter the USA every day by simply walking unchallenged across our southern border. In the 1952 miles of border from California to Texas they use literally thousands of trails and paths, ever changing their routes to avoid detection. Cartel involvement has brought increased organizational skills to smuggling operations and, contrary to government claims, only a very small percentage are apprehended. Accurate statistics are impossible to gather, but the true numbers are staggering, and the general public remains largely uninformed. "
Now there are new groups forming and establishing their own organizations to monitor the situation on our southern border, one of these groups call themselves "Concerned Citizens" I recently had the opportunity to visit this low profile group as they organized monitoring and listening posts east of Gila Bend Arizona on and near I 8 a major U.S. highway that they claim is a transfer point of illegal aliens and loads of drugs on that highways many marker posts where they contend loads of human and drugs enter the U.S. through drug trafficking corridors originating in Mexico.
According to the Concerned Citizens of Arizona they want to alert the public to a new citizen activist opportunity to help them observe and report the daily invasion across our southern border with Mexico.
Daniel Webster said "This is not a Minuteman or extremist group sponsored event — just a call to action by a group of "Concerned Citizens."
If you and or your group is interested you can contact them through e-mail: dtfsdf@oco.net
Concerned Citizens report that DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano and the other race baiting, ethnocentric anarchists want the people of America to believe the border is under "operational control." Nothing could be further from the truth says an organizer with the new group of "Concerned Citizens" and they have already have to deployed. They hope to video tape and educate Americans about the real threat to National Security and our public safety.
Concerned Citizens has a full blown showing of people who have come out and are enjoying our federal lands. This is people coming together to help AZ Governor Jan Brewer and the people of Arizona to bring attention to the need for National Guard on our southern border.
The group is in support of Jan Brewer signing SB1070 and say they want to help educate the public. they say "It's time to bring back the" Minuteman Type Lines"
The group points out that there are 30 miles of area in a straight line that they cover. They say that there propose is doing what they do best..... "DETERRENCE BY PRESENCE"
The operation was kicked off and started operations 15 May the operation is expected to least at least 2-3 weeks.
The locations of deployment is: Interstate 8, 45 miles south of downtown Phoenix
where they have placed multiple camps at major choke points.
This I-8 corridor is very active and "VERY DANGEROUS," there is a very good chance you will see "ARMED DRUG LOADS"!! moving through the area. This opp "IS NOT" for 1st timers, we are ready and at the top of our game with all the necessary gear for this type of opp and for being self sufficient for desert camping!
With that said, the biggest thing we can do on this opp is to be seen by the public on I-8 so we will be posting on every mile marker (that's were all the action is anyway) for a 30 mi. stretch. We provide maps/intel/phone numbers and radios on site as, there should be 2 vehicles & 4 people min. per mi. marker for safety.
To the Concerned Citizens that are working I-8 and to those in the future thank you for supporting Arizona.
Concerned Citizens continue to do the job the Federal Government won't do by securing the border south of Phoenix along Interstate 8. What we are having to do now is what should be done by Congress by putting Troops on the border.
The area south of Interstate 8 between Gila Bend (Junction 85 & I-8) and Casa Grande (Junction I-8 & I-10) is a major smuggling corridor.....drugs, IAs, weapons..... We've seen it all. This is approximately a 60 mile stretch, but not all that distance is active with smuggling. The traffic comes up through the Tohono D' O'dham Reservation day and night.
The fact that load vehicles use I-8 to enter this area, pick up their loads and leave the area makes them vulnerable to detection. Load areas on I-8 are typically one of the following: dirt roads, major washes and/or mile markers. Mile markers are used a "waypoints" by the load vehicles, so this also makes them vulnerable to detection.
Bottom line, if we had enough dedicated individuals "camped out" on the entire known active load up points on I-8, we could effectively shut this area down. A lot of recon has been completed in this area so we know this is doable.... just a matter of enough dedicated individuals.
This IS a High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area and is potentially very dangerous so participating individuals who need to be prepared to defend tthemselves.
t Abandon items found on the smuggling routes lift there by the smugglers and cleaned up by the Concerned Citizens. Photo By Concerned Citizens.
A long list of items, including abandoned vehicles, can be attributed to illegal aliens/ drug smugglers that traverse the desert. Items such as used needles, drug paraphernalia, plastic grocery bags, paper products, empty water containers, blankets, bakpaks, clothing, used disposable diapers, sanitary napkins, etc are among things you might run across. The heaps of litter long forgotten by those forging ahead come at a great cost to those who must bear the responsibility of cleaning it up. Each illegal alien leaves an average of 8 pounds of trash at layover and pickup areas. Statistics from the Border Patrol Tucson Sector report approximately 500,000 illegal aliens apprehensions in that sector for 2009. Conservatively, the Border Patrol apprehends 1 in 5 illegal aliens so that means 2, 500,000 illegal aliens leaving 20 million pounds of trash every year in the Arizona Desert !
Many argue the government is not doing its job when it comes to securing the border especially with surveillance pictures snapped in March of heavily armed drug runners in a remote desert area near Casa Grande.
Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu says it's a known corridor for drug and human smuggling and it's same area where Deputy Louis Puroll was shot during a gun battle with six smugglers, "he unloaded upon the suspects that were firing on him that were trying to kill him."
Puroll was shot in the side and he believes he shot one of the suspects. Sheriff Babue says this latest round of border violence underscores the dangers his deputies face every day, "literally what it appears to be squad size elements using para military tactics that are either escorting largely drug loads or illegal's."
WE WILL BE PROTESTING SEPTEMBER 12 AT GROUND ZERO PUT IT ON YOUR CALENDERS NOW
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Here is a highlights video (roughly 30 minutes) from the protest at ground zero on D-day. A full DVD will be available in a couple of weeks (will keep you posted).
Otherwise known as Because They’re Better Than Us, example #6548. Roll Call reports on Nancy Pelosi’s decision last year to move her San Francisco district offices to a new building, supposedly because she needs more security as Speaker of the House. However, something doesn’t add up, because she had been Speaker for almost three years at the time of the move — and her new offices will cost four times as much as her old suite:
Last fall, Speaker Nancy Pelosi moved her district office into the new federal building in San Francisco. The move quadrupled the rent she pays, and her new $18,736 monthly bill is almost double the next-highest rental paid by a Member of the House.
A database assembled by the Sunlight Foundation in cooperation with Roll Call provides new insight into Congressional spending on district office rents. Not surprisingly, Members from large urban districts with the highest property values are paying the most for district office rental, particularly New York–area Members. …
Why did Pelosi make the move to new digs at all? She had been in her original offices for almost 20 years, and her spokesperson claimed to Roll Call that she needed more space as Speaker of the House. Perhaps, but at four times the previous rent? San Francisco commercial space costs money, but it doesn’t usually run twice as expensive as Manhattan.
Actually, all she got was a one-third increase in floor space. Pelosi accepted a 300% increase in rent for 33% more space. That certainly fits with a Democratic Congress that has increased annual federal spending by 33% in three years while providing worse service and running up massive amounts of debt.
Her office also claims that the new building will save on energy costs. In other words, because of the building’s “green” profile, it will use about half the amount of energy as the old building. So taxpayers will pay four times as much in rent in order to save half off the electrical bill. That also sounds like the kind of economics that Democrats have used since assuming power in 2007.
Finally, Pelosi says she needs the additional security the building provides as Speaker. That didn’t seem to be a problem in 2007, 2008, or the first half of 2009, when Pelosi was Speaker without any incidents at her old location. Nor does it explain whether the roughly $14,000 a month extra would needed to have been spent if they had simply upgraded the security at the old location. We should ask, however, if Pelosi plans to vacate that building when she stops being Speaker and the extra security becomes unnecessary — which could happen as early as January.
Update: Had to adjust my math to the terms. Since I wrote the figures as an increase, that makes it a 300% increase, not 400%. The new figure is 400% of the old rent, which makes it a 300% increase. Also, the same applies to the space. It’s 133% of her old space, but a 33% increase, as is the rise in annual federal spending. I’ve adjusted the above accordingly. Thanks to commenter theperfecteconomist for the heads-up.
A new U.S. Senate bill would grant the president far-reaching emergency powers to seize control of or even shut down portions of the Internet.
The legislation announced Thursday says that companies such as broadband providers, search engines, or software firms that the government selects "shall immediately comply with any emergency measure or action developed" by the Department of Homeland Security. Anyone failing to comply would be fined.
That emergency authority would allow the federal government to "preserve those networks and assets and our country and protect our people," Joe Lieberman, the primary sponsor of the measure and the chairman of the Homeland Security committee, told reporters on Thursday. Lieberman is an independent senator from Connecticut who caucuses with the Democrats.
Because there are few limits on the president's emergency power, which can be renewed indefinitely, the densely worded 197-page bill (PDF) is likely to encounter stiff opposition.
TechAmerica, probably the largest U.S. technology lobby group, said it was concerned about "unintended consequences that would result from the legislation's regulatory approach" and "the potential for absolute power." And the Center for Democracy and Technology publicly worried that the Lieberman bill's emergency powers "include authority to shut down or limit Internet traffic on private systems."
The idea of an Internet "kill switch" that the president could flip is not new. A draft Senate proposal that CNET obtained in August allowed the White House to "declare a cybersecurity emergency," and another from Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) would have explicitly given the government the power to "order the disconnection" of certain networks or Web sites.
On Thursday, both senators lauded Lieberman's bill, which is formally titled the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act, or PCNAA. Rockefeller said "I commend" the drafters of the PCNAA. Collins went further, signing up at a co-sponsor and saying at a press conference that "we cannot afford to wait for a cyber 9/11 before our government realizes the importance of protecting our cyber resources."
Under PCNAA, the federal government's power to force private companies to comply with emergency decrees would become unusually broad. Any company on a list created by Homeland Security that also "relies on" the Internet, the telephone system, or any other component of the U.S. "information infrastructure" would be subject to command by a new National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications (NCCC) that would be created inside Homeland Security.
The only obvious limitation on the NCCC's emergency power is one paragraph in the Lieberman bill that appears to have grown out of the Bush-era flap over warrantless wiretapping. That limitation says that the NCCC cannot order broadband providers or other companies to "conduct surveillance" of Americans unless it's otherwise legally authorized.
Lieberman said Thursday that enactment of his bill needed to be a top congressional priority. "For all of its 'user-friendly' allure, the Internet can also be a dangerous place with electronic pipelines that run directly into everything from our personal bank accounts to key infrastructure to government and industrial secrets," he said. "Our economic security, national security and public safety are now all at risk from new kinds of enemies--cyber-warriors, cyber-spies, cyber-terrorists and cyber-criminals."
A new cybersecurity bureaucracy
Lieberman's proposal would form a powerful and extensive new Homeland Security bureaucracy around the NCCC, including "no less" than two deputy directors, and liaison officers to the Defense Department, Justice Department, Commerce Department, and the Director of National Intelligence. (How much the NCCC director's duties would overlap with those of the existing assistant secretary for infrastructure protection is not clear.)
The NCCC also would be granted the power to monitor the "security status" of private sector Web sites, broadband providers, and other Internet components. Lieberman's legislation requires the NCCC to provide "situational awareness of the security status" of the portions of the Internet that are inside the United States -- and also those portions in other countries that, if disrupted, could cause significant harm.
Selected private companies would be required to participate in "information sharing" with the Feds. They must "certify in writing to the director" of the NCCC whether they have "developed and implemented" federally approved security measures, which could be anything from encryption to physical security mechanisms, or programming techniques that have been "approved by the director." The NCCC director can "issue an order" in cases of noncompliance.
The prospect of a vast new cybersecurity bureaucracy with power to command the private sector worries some privacy advocates. "This is a plan for an auto-immune reaction," says Jim Harper, director of information studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. "When something goes wrong, the government will attack our infrastructure and make society weaker."
To sweeten the deal for industry groups, Lieberman has included a tantalizing offer absent from earlier drafts: immunity from civil lawsuits. If a software company's programming error costs customers billions, or a broadband provider intentionally cuts off its customers in response to a federal command, neither would be liable.
If there's an "incident related to a cyber vulnerability" after the president has declared an emergency and the affected company has followed federal standards, plaintiffs' lawyers cannot collect damages for economic harm. And if the harm is caused by an emergency order from the Feds, not only does the possibility of damages virtually disappear, but the U.S. Treasury will even pick up the private company's tab.
Another sweetener: A new White House office would be charged with forcing federal agencies to take cybersecurity more seriously, with the power to jeopardize their budgets if they fail to comply. The likely effect would be to increase government agencies' demand for security products.
Tom Gann, McAfee's vice president for government relations, stopped short of criticizing the Lieberman bill, calling it a "very important piece of legislation."
McAfee is paying attention to "a number of provisions of the bill that could use work," Gann said, and "we've certainly put some focus on the emergency provisions."
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez secretly is using a Latin American terrorist group whose members have teamed up with notorious drug lords in Mexico to try to raise the threat level against the United States, according to a report in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.
Chavez is close to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia), a far-left terrorist group that has worked with Mexican drug cartels to attack Mexican officials in a campaign of general destabilization of the region.
In turn, the drug lords are using Mexico as a base from which to mount offensive operations along the U.S.-Mexican border and in large U.S. cities.
(Story continues below)
FARC seeks to overthrow the democratically elected Colombian government, which Chavez also opposes. The U.S. State Department has designated FARC as a foreign terrorist organization.
The late FARC leader Raul Reyes, who was its second-in-command until he was killed in 2008, had confirmed in a letter to his commanders FARC's relationship with Mexican drug lords. He also confirmed FARC's relationship with Chavez.
"We have rid ourselves of several burdens and shored up our policy vis-Ã -vis President Chavez," Reyes said in a February 2008 address to the FARC secretariat.
Security analysts say Chavez sees FARC as a tool to hit back at the U.S. without any direct fingers being pointed at him. Washington is very aware of Chavez's relationship to FARC. Analysts do not believe, however, that the terrorist organization has any intention of mounting attacks directly on targets in the U.S., although they cannot be ruled out.
The case is straightforward. On Election Day 2008, two members of the New Black Panther party (NBPP) dressed in military garb were captured on videotape at a Philadelphia polling place spouting racial epithets and menacing voters. One, Minister King Samir Shabazz, wielded a nightstick. It was a textbook case of voter intimidation and clearly covered under the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
A Department of Justice trial team was assigned to investigate. They gathered affidavits from witnesses—one of the poll watchers was called a “white devil” and a “cracker.” A Panther told him he would be “ruled by the black man.” The trial team, all career Justice attorneys and headed by voting section chief Chris Coates, filed a case against the two Panthers caught on tape. Malik Zulu Shabazz, head of the national NBPP, and the party itself were also named based on evidence the party had planned the deployment of 300 members on Election Day and on statements after the incident in which the NBPP endorsed the intimidation at the Philadelphia polling station.
The trial team quickly obtained a default judgment—meaning it had won the case because the New Black Panther party failed to defend itself. Yet in May 2009, Obama Justice Department lawyers, appointed temporarily to fill top positions in the civil rights division, ordered the case against the NBPP dismissed. An administration that has pledged itself to stepping-up civil rights enforcement dropped the case and, for over a year, has prevented the trial team lawyers from telling their story.
The Panthers like to tout their “victory” and parrot the Obama Justice Department’s line that the case was unmeritorious. The party held a national convention in Atlanta over Memorial Day weekend (sponsored and attended by the once mainstream Southern Christian Leadership Conference and a grab bag of socialist and anti-Semitic figures). Its website boasts: “The New Black Panther Party has been embroiled in a battle between Republican Congressmen and the U.S. Department of Justice over a ‘voter intimidation’ scandal for the last 18 months. During these 18 months right wing and Republican Newspaper and Electronic media have gone to exhaustive lengths to discredit and slander the New Black Panther Party and its Chairman and Attorney Malik Zulu Shabazz.”
But on June 4, J. Christian Adams, a veteran lawyer in Justice’s voting section and a key member of the trial team, resigned. His reasons were spelled out in a letter that also noted that the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which was investigating the dismissal, had subpoenaed him and Coates, but their superiors, in violation of federal law, had ordered them not to testify. He noted that “the defendants in the New Black Panther lawsuit have become increasingly belligerent in their rhetoric toward the attorneys who brought the case. . . . Their grievances toward us generally echo the assertions [by Justice Department officials] that the facts and law did not support the lawsuit against them.” Coates, too, has left the Voting Section, moving to South Carolina to work in the U.S. attorney’s office. Last Friday, the civil rights commission’s general counsel, David Blackwood, announced that he had received an email from Christian Adams’s attorney stating that Adams is now available to provide information to the commission. Commissioner Todd Graziano said they would schedule Adams’s appearance at a public hearing as soon as possible as the commission had been seeking his testimony for many months.
With Adams’s resignation and letter, a clearer picture is finally emerging of what led to the dismissal of the case, the actions of DoJ political appointees, the department’s misrepresentations about the case, and the Obama administration’s approach to civil rights enforcement.
